Method and apparatus for combining printed sheets with single face corrugated paper

ABSTRACT

APPARATUS IN WHICH A SINGLE FACE CORRUGATED WEB IS FED, WITH ITS FLUTES FACING DOWNWARDLY, THROUGH A GLUE APPLICATOR AT A COMBINING STATION AND IS WHICH PREPRINTED DISCRETE SHEETS ARE FED SERIALLY TO THE COMBINING STATION UNDERNEATH THE CORRUGATED WEB.

March 2, 1971 -c KLE|N ETAL METHOD AND APPARATUSFOR COMBINING PRINTED SHEETS WITH SINGLE PAGE CORRUGATED PAPER Filed Feb. 10, 1967 [M5 BE/2L X X lay/W 147% 5 JIM/7W5 5 United States Patent 3,567,554 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMBINING PRINTED SHEETS WITH SINGLE FACE COR- RUGATED PAPER Charles H. Klein, James K. Haley, and Alfred C. Sides, Cincinnati, Ohio, assignors to Novelart Manufacturing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio Continuation-impart of applications Ser. No. 286,600, May 20, 1963, and Ser. No. 548,599, May 9, 1966. This application Feb. 10, 1967, Ser. No. 615,215 The portion of the term of the patent subsequent to Feb. 28, 1984, has been disclaimed Int. Cl. B311? 1/00 U.S. Cl. 156-470 3 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Apparatus in which a single face corrugated web is fed, with its flutes facing downwardly, through a glue applicator at a combining station and in which preprinted discrete sheets are fed serially to the combining station underneath the corrugated web.

I CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED- APPLICATIONS This is a continuation-in-part of the following applications:

Application Ser. No. 281,600 filed May 20, 1963 now U.S. Pat. No. 3,306,805 issued Feb. 28, 1967.

Application Ser. No. 548,559 filed May 9, 1966 now abandoned.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to printed corrugated paperboard and more particularly the invention is directed to apparatus for manufacturing corrugated paperboard in which one facing sheet is formed from a plurality of separate printed sheets.

While the invention may have many applications, it has been originally developed as a solution to a problem in the manufacture of printed corrugated board cartons for packaging goods. Printed cartons manufactured from corrugated board are not of themselves new, but until the present invention, manufacturers of such corrugated board have had imposed on them limitations as to the sizes of the corrugated boards. The limitations arise from the known apparatus for manufacturing corrugated paperboard and from the printing machines with which one of the facing sheets is printed. The manufacture of double face corrugated paper requires three continuous webs which are fed into a corrugating machine. The machine corrugates one of the webs and adhesively joins it between the other two webs. The requirement of manufacturing corrugated board from three continuous webs confines the printing of the web to a web fed rotary pressI Presses of that type are limited in that they can print only a single size display whose length must be no greater than the circumference of the printing cylinder. The box must be so designed so that its dimensions or multiples of its dimensions correspond to that single size. This severe restriction in manufacture of printed corrugated paperboard has resulted in an extremely limited use of printed paperboard cartons.

The present invention arises in part from the realization that the use of printed corrugated paperboard cartons could be greatly expanded if one face of the board could be formed, at least initially, by printed sheets for there is no restriction, within practical limits, on the size of the printing on single sheets.

In our copending applications, there is a disclosure of Patented Mar. 2, 1971 a method and apparatus for joining printed sheets to single-face corrugated paper to form double-face corrugated board. The method and apparatus disclosed there includes means for making single-face corrugated web with its fluting facing in an upward direction and means for feeding sheets above the single-face web, the sheets being joined serially to the web in combining rolls.

There is no significant prior art other than that described generally above.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is directed to apparatus in which corrugating apparatus is used in a conventional manner to form and feed to a combining section a single-face corrugated web with its flutes facing in a downward direction. Printed sheets, with the printing facing downwardly, are fed sequentially from a stack into the combining station. At the combining station, the sheets are adhesively secured to the downwardly facing fluting of the single-face corrugated web and are thereafter conveyed away from the combining station during which conveying operation the adhesive is dried.

In addition to the concept of feeding discrete sheets to the underside of a corrugated web, the present invention includes the feature of providing upper and lower conveyor belts having contiguous flights between which the double-face web is carried and dried. Through the use of parallel flights for conveying the combined single face and sheets, the sheets are held tightly to the fluting of the single-face material and are not subjected on their printed surfaces to any abrasive action as would normally be the case in conventional apparatus for forming doubleface corrugated board.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING The drawing is a diagrammatic side elevational View of apparatus of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The principal sections of apparatus employed in the present invention are a single-face corrugator 10, a sheet feeder 11, a conveying table 12, a combining section 13, and a drying section 14.

The corrugating apparatus is conventional and adhesively combines a facing sheet 15 and a fluting 16 to form a single-face web 17 with its fluting facing downwardly as illustrated in the drawing. The single-face web 17 is passed over idler rolls 19, 20, and 21 to feed it into the combining station 13.

The idler rolls 20 and 21 support the single-face web over the sheet feeder 11 and conveyor table 12 which feed sheets 22 serially into the combining station. The sheet feeder and conveying table are identical in all material respects to the comparable apparatus which is disclosed in our earlier filed applications cross referenced above. The apparatus includes, at the downstream end of the c0nveyor table 12, a mechanism indicated at 23 for timing the feeding of the sheets into the combining station. This mechanism includes movable stops and intermittently operated positive feed rolls which engage the sheets and positively drive them into the combining section. The speed or frequency of operation of the timing mechanism is variable, through means indicated generally at 23, in order to accommodate sheets of varying lengths and its operation is correlated to that of the sheet feeder by a transmission system 29 and 29' so that the sequential feeding of sheets is varied with variations in the length of the sheets and the timing of the sheets into the combining section. The variable means 23' drives the timing means 23 through the transmission 29 and the sheet feeder 11 th r oughl the transmission 29'. The variable means 23 is driven through a drive transmission 31 from the dryer sectioni14 which runs at aconstiant speed which is the same as the speed of the single race web 17 going into the combining section as the web 17 is fed from thesupply of single-faced corrugated paper which in this embodiment, is disclosed as the corrugator 10. A more detailed description of the drive systerri and the timing means is presented in Klein et al., Pat. No. 3,306,805 in connection with the description of FIG. 2 thereof. One such system is fruther disclosed in considerable detail in connection with FIGS. 12 and 13 of Klein et al., application No. 543,559. 7 it The apparatus also includes an electric detector systent for detecting a gap between sheets, the detector incldding a mechanism for disengaging the adhesive applicator, thereby preventing the feeding into the drying section of a single-face web having adhesive applied to its flutes and no protective printing sheet overlying that adhesive.

At the combining station 13, the single-face web 17 passes between an idler roll 24 and an adhesive applicator roll 25, the adhesive applicator roll engaging the underside of the single-face web to contact the fiuting. The applicator roll 25 is contacted by a doctor roll 26 which regulates the thickness of the adhesive carried by the surface of the roli into contact with the fiuting. The roll 25 rotates in a bath of adhesive supported in a trough 27. A mechanism diagrammatically illustrated at 28 is provided to drop the roll 25 out of engagement with the fluting 16 of the single face when a gap in the sheets 22 passing over the conveyor table 12 is detected. The combining section also includes a feed roll 30 which aids in guiding the sheets into the dryer section and into contact with the fluting of the single-face web.

The drying section includes two conveyor belts 32 and 33 passing around drums 34 and 35, respectively. The drums 34 and 35 are motor driven as described in our earlier applications and the drive for the sheet feeder and timing mechanism is derived from the motor which drives the drum.

The upper belt has a lower flight 36 which passes immediately adjacent an upper flight 37 of the lower belt 33. These adjacent flights engage and carry the combined single face and overlying sheets for a substantial distance during which the adhesive between them is dried. These flights are supported by a stationary bed 38, which may be heated if necessary, over which the flight 37 of the lower belt passes.

A bank of heaters 40 is mounted adjacent the upstream end of the lower belt 33 to heat the belt immediately prior to its moving into contact with the printed sheets being fed into the combining station. The heat is employed to assist in the drying of the adhesive by which the single-face web is combined with the sheets and thus shortens the length of supporting belts which are required to convey the double-face board until it is dried.

Downstream of the drying station a cutoff mechanism of the type described in our application Ser. No. 548,559 is used to cut the double-face web into sheets. The electriceye registration devices of that mechanism will, of course, be mounted below the web in order to detect registration marks on the printed sheets. Otherwise, the cutoff mechanism will be the same in all material respects as that described.

OPERATION In operation, the single-face web is formed by the corrugator and fed under the idler roll 19 and over the idler rolls and 21 and into the nip between rolls 24 and where an adhesive is appiied by the roll 25 to the fluting 16 of the web. Simultaneously, sheets from a stack in the sheet feeder 11 are fed serially and with a slight overlap along a conveyor" table 12 to a timing mechanism 23. The timing mechanism feeds the sheets at precisely the speed of the web 17 underneath the roll 30 and into engagementwith the fluting 16 of the web 17. The combined single sheets and web 17 are carried between the flights 36 and 37 of "the belts 32 and 33 to a cutoff mechanism not shown. During the travel between the belt flights, the sheets 22 are held tightly between the belts and the heat applied to the belt 33 by the heater 40 and, if necessary, by heat applied to the stationary bed 38, dries the adhesive to form a printed double-face corrugated board.

It shouldbe noted that in the use of the invention, the direction of the flutes 16 may be oriented with re spect to the printed material on the sheets 22 simply by orientation of the sheets in the feeder. For example, if the combining apparatus is adapted to handle a web 77" wide and if the sheet feeder 11 is adapted to handle a sheet 77" long, then a sheet whose maximum dimension is no greater than 77" can be oriented with its longest dimension in the machine direction so that the fluting runs transversely of the length of the sheet. Alternatively, the sheet can be printed with its short dimension in the machine direction (that is, the direction of travel of the '3 web) whereby the fluting runs parallel to the iength of the sheet. There is, therefore, no restriction or economic inhibition on the manner in which the sheets are printed and thereafter combined due to a requirement of flute direction.

What is claimed is:

1. Apparatus for making double-face corrugated paper having one face formed of discrete sheets of printed paper, said apparatus comprising:

a supply of a web of single-face corrugated paper having a downwardly facing corrugated surface;

a combining section for adhesively joining printed sheets sequentially to the downwardly facing corrugated surface of said single-face web;

means for feeding said web of single-face corrugated paper from said supply into said combining section with said corrugated surface facing downwardly;

means positioned below said web feeding means for feeding printed sheets sequentially into said combining section beneath said web;

timing means for controlling the frequency of said printed sheet feeding means; and

means for varying said frequency through said timing means in accordance with the length of said printed sheets to maintain the lineal feed rate of said printed sheets substantially equal to the lineal feed rate of said corrugated web into said combining section.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:

upper and lower drier belts located downstream of said combining section, said drier belts having adjacent flights between which the double-faee corrugated board is fed.

3. Apparatus according to claim 2 further comprising:

means for heating said lower belt immediately prior to its movement to a position adjacent the upper belt.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 545,354 8/1895 Ferres l56-473 2,008,974 7/ 1935 Weber 1562.70X 2,245,396 6/1941 Harrold et a1. 27l46 3,217,425 11/1965 Nikkel 156588X 3,306,805 2/1967 Klein et al l56470 SAMUEL W. ENGLE, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 

